Bitter Chocolate
by RachelZimon
Summary: Drabbles and prompts surrounding the growing relationship between Oskar and Gothetta as the little vampires grow into adulthood and beyond. Prompts welcome. Rating will probably go up, let's be honest.
1. Breakfast

My own little headcannon for School for Little Vampires, revolving mostly around Oskar and Gothetta.

I've come up with my own visual age system for the vampires since the shows pretty wibbly wobby on it. Oxblood is stated to be 200 years older than some of his oldest students he's ever had at the school, so I have reason to believe that every 7 or so years is about the equivalent to 1 year of growth for a vampire. I figure ageing starts slowing once they stop actually growing, and age then becomes more of what (un)life hands you to affect you visually. This way, they all grow up the same, but you have some ageless vampires like the Count Von Horrificus who look as if they are not ageing because they manage their stress and body well versus other like Oxblood and Lenny who have given in to the visual temptation that come with time. I hope that makes sense.

This makes vampires about 18 and fully grown around 135, and I predict them all to be around 75 in the show's cannon.

Breakfast

Puberty was not the slow moving beast under water as it should have been for Oskar Von Horrificus. It didn't come in stages, with awkward but smooth intentions. It came not with somewhat gangly limbs or face bumps. Oskar, by all means, had no warning for the bomb that would drop within in. He'd already seen Stoker and Leechy slowly grow into more masculine forms and being. For them, it had been textbook, methodical, annoying, and wonderfully predictable.

Adulthood, although, hit Oskar like a brick to the face.

At first, it was as if nothing had changed. Although shorter than most of the other boys, he still had some height to be proud of. His adult fangs were finally coming in. Boyish but not altogether childish anymore, he was growing and knew it was only a matter of time until he physically caught up. It had been an exciting notion – to grow up. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he understood the finite nature of his current state. As a child, time mattered, and years were something you counted.

He used to count a lot. He counted the number of years until he'd been an adult. He counted the number of years left in school. He counted his age, and that of his friends. He was content with the infinite lifespan he was handed. Counting mattered less as he came upon the deadlines of his childhood. He had been moving perpetually closer to simple existence since he had been born and it was exciting and frightening and completely inevitable.

Lenny broke his thoughts with a delivery of breakfast. A plate of lizard eggs and blood sausage was place gingerly for him, and the overwhelming smell of the blood churned Oskar's stomach familiarly.

The dining room was rowdy. The Count sat at the head, Lady Kryptina by his right, and the two ate with centuries of practised elegance and decorum. Professor Oxblood, at the Count's left, ate with far less poise, but gusto and that had always pleased Lenny. Young Klot, who's puppy fat and rounded child figure was all but gone, fed Ashley spoonfuls from his own plate. Stoker ate as if he'd perish without it all in his system immediately. Leechy, laughing to himself, stopped between bites to make notes on a pad of papyrus with a quill and inkwell.

Oskar, chewing through a final bite of egg, looked to his right just as Gothetta took the seat next to him with her own plate. She ate silently, stopping to laugh at the wild conversation of the morning. Her wild hair was pulled over her shoulder for Aracula to play with as she ate. The spider curled into her hair happily, nesting in the mass of red. She flicked it over to her back as the spider grew close to terribly tangling her hair, and Aracula, peeved, bounced down to chew on the crumbs left on her plate.

Gothetta's deliverance to adulthood came upon her as gently as ashes falling from a fire. Her pale skin shone with sharp features. Her dark eyes were laced with black and gold. Her nose, a pointed piece of marble cut upon her face as if she were simply made to be beautiful and wondrous to look at.

It was no secret that she was growing into a dark beauty. Tall, and lean, with shapely curves starting to fill her form. Stoker had made many attempts to taunt her into a tryst, especially after his shoulder muscles filled out and he slowly started becoming the dark and damning figure he always thought himself to be.

She was, if anything, indifferent. Far too used to his attentions, she had come to the resolution of ignoring him and hoping he'd go away. Usually, it worked, and when it didn't Oskar was their to pick up the pieces.

Finishing up her food, and leaving the rest to her dearest spider, she stopped to give Oskar a small smile before attempting to stretch away the evening fog in her bones. Stoker had made it quite clear he was watching, with an approving hum. She snorted as she tucked her head towards Oskar and waved him off with a flippant hand.

Oskar chuckled at Stoker's dejected face, and as he turned to look back at her was greeted with the sight of her neck. White, smooth, and jutted towards him as she pulled kinks out.

For a moment, all he could see was her skin. The taut flesh pulled deliciously over her neck. Her muscles vibrated underneath with satisfaction. Then he heard it; her veins, her essence, her _blood_. His eyes fluttered closed as the melodious rumble of molasses under her skin called to him. Something base, far older than anyone or anything in the room thundered through his underbelly. His mouth and thoughts were as if someone had stuffed him full of cotton balls. He couldn't see, he couldn't think. He could only want.

Want her.

The absurd thought shot him back to reality and it only took but a second for it all to come crashing in. Gothetta's blood still chimed in his ears as it ran thick through her veins. The smell of the blood sausage was overpowering, like a garlic grenade or full on assault from one of Polidori's successors.

His stomach dropped, and the cotton in his body turned to hurricanes and storms. His mind was a buzz with sirens. His mouth felt hot and wet.

Then, Oskar Von Horrificus vomited across the dining table, and fainted on the spot.

Prompts welcome!


	2. Fate Moves in Circles

**A look into Sunshine and Oskar's relationship that got super sad, super fast. I think I live for angst.**

 **Rating: T**

 **Contains: swearing, mentions of drugs**

 **Fate Moves In Circles (Constantly Chasing Its Tail)**

Oskar loved Sunshine Polidori as any child could love another. His love had started as a fascination. He had already lived so long, longer than her parents and yet, in all her fragile mortal ways, she looked and acted older than him from the day they met. She encompassed everything he wasn't and everything he his rebellious mind had dared to want.

She was good, and although Oskar had always striven to be nice and gentlemanly, good was never intended to describe him. His nature, although docile, was never meant for such things. Eventually, he knew, he'd come to be everything he despised as a child and when that time came he'd no longer despise it.

She glowed; her skin held a rich pink beneath her cheeks and fat, the gold of the day captured by her flesh in a wonderful tan. Oskar could never be anything more than white and ashen and he hated it. Sometimes he dreamed of beaches and cool water – his skin a decadent brown after a long day running through the sand. She hated the beach. He could never fathom why for, in all his imaginings, the day was the most glorious no matter where one could be.

But of all things, Sunshine was the light. Perhaps her parents had seen it in her the moment she'd been born. She always hated her name, claiming it stupid and silly. He, once again, failed to see her point, because when she looked at him that was the closest he'd ever come to the sun.

Her smile had more brightness than any sunset he'd seen from the safety of the castle walls. Her hair the exact colour of what he hoped the sun would be. Her eyes, such a warm brown he felt as if she were made of honey and chocolate. Sunshine was the taste on his tongue he longed for be couldn't have.

And so, Oskar loved her. He loved her for as long as his child heart could hold on.

But she grew older, and he couldn't keep up. By the time she was sixteen, she towered over him. Where the young Sunshine had sat, string-bean limbs, gawky and radiant, now stood a woman. Pigtails were long gone, as were her childish clothes and demeanour. The first time she cursed, he'd been there, and it had physically hurt to hear her voice – still so much like the Sunshine he knew – rude with intent. Sometimes, she smoked and drank, and the humans of her age joined her and laughed and screamed with delight at their secrets.

Sunshine wasn't a child anymore, but he was, and as much as he tried to hold onto the only humanity he'd ever had, he found he couldn't love her anymore. She had moved on from the days of flower petals and love letters. Things Oskar's young heart couldn't help but hold dear were the tales of yesterday – forgotten for blindly wandering hands and tongue kisses.

The last time they met as friends, neither of them said good-bye. The understanding that they'd never be together as anything more than people aware of the others presence ever again was unsaid but palpable. They didn't need to talk about it.

They had sat on the old swings of the park. Sunshine once told him this is where she first tried to get high. He hated that — that was now the memory he associated with her as they sat in uncomfortable silence.

The inevitability of their places in the world had never become clear until then. He leaned forward in the swing's seat, the tips of his pointed dress shoes just grazing the dirt below. She twiddled with the rope under her hands as she swung. She kicked up ground purposely with each passing swing.

"You know" she spoke with furrowed brows, "maybe my grandfather was right..."

When Oskar turned to look at her, no kiddish radiance remained. He wanted to cry.

"About?"

Suddenly, she laughed and covered her flushed cheeks, "Never mind, it's dumb. You won't get it."

"Try me," he mumbled, and he was scared of her words.

"It's just, I dunno, maybe he's right about there being things we don't understand," she paused to stop the swing completely and dig her toe through the dirt, "Not vampires per say, but other things. Things we can't just explain with molecules and science experiments. I like to think that it can't all be what the textbooks say."

She smiled to herself, and continued, "Maybe that's what all the nonsense has been about all these years. Maybe he was just seeing what we're all too blinded to, and he just gave it a stupid name."

Oskar said nothing. He couldn't say anything. There was nothing left to think of, to tell, or to be. They spent the rest of the night, dreading the silence but both too far gone to break it with words.

After that night, Oskar never saw his friend again.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The first night they met as enemies, neither of them had seen coming.

Sunshine was almost 40. She walked with a strange limp in her gait and held layers of postpartum fat around her hips and thighs. Her neck held a deep scar that ran down into the neckline of her shirt. On her back, a crossbow was slung over her left shoulder.

Oskar was 102, and looked just as much the juvenile teenager he was. He'd barely grown since he'd last seen her – fragile and thin, his adult fangs hadn't come in yet, and feet an obvious size too big for his body. She stared, almost in disbelief, but a dark hurt ran through her features. He looked back at her, warm honeyed brown meeting the cold ice of his eyes, and he willed himself not to break down and sob.

With a practised move of her shoulder, the crossbow was in her hands. He kept it aimed at the ground, but fingers tight against the hilt and trigger with anticipation.

The forest around them was quiet and still. He hadn't known she was there, otherwise he'd have fled hours ago. He'd come looking for herbs for Gothetta's latest concoction. She was somewhere in the forest with them, and he begged to whoever could possibly be listening, be it by heaven or hell, that she didn't stray this way. Sunshine wouldn't hesitate to shoot her when seen – when Oskar realized this, her hardened gaze deliberate and awful as it searched him, everything inside him begged to flee; to grab Gothetta from the woods and run and never look back.

He didn't move though, frozen before her. Sunshine took hesitant steps towards him. She aimed the crossbow at his chest and silent tears ran down her cheeks like spring rain.

"So, I guess grandpa had it right when he thought you were a vampire all those years ago," her voice held only animosity, but her wet eyes gave her away, "How could I have been so stupid? You only ever saw me at night, you always looked sick – for fuck's sake, even your teeth! I thought you just needed braces, but no. You sat by, one of _them_ , and actually to me about how vampires and everything else surely couldn't be real!"

Sunshine threw her crossbow to the ground in a fit. Mud came up and splashed her thighs and fists. She was so red, her face screwed up in rage like a deformed apple doll. With so much emotion running through, Sunshine's head lolled back on her shoulders and she screamed.

"Was this all a game to you," she yelled, "Some sick twisted game your kind plays for shits and giggles? Grandpa wrote in his journals that young vampires can't even digest blood properly – makes them mad and crazy with power. Was I supposed to be your first, was that it? You sick _fuck_! I hate you! I hate _everyone_ of you!"

She fell to the slimy ground, defeated. Her hands trailed mud across her face as she held her cheeks and rocked in place. Her cries echoed in the valley around them, hoarse and broken.

"Sunshine, please -"

"No," she bellowed. She nearly fell to the ground with each word shaking her like an earthquake inside herself, "Polidori! It's Polidori! It's always been Polidori, and _it always will_!"

Sunshine's arms wrapped around herself. She stayed, wet and screaming. The puddle at her legs was seeping through her clothes and chilling her to her bones. She felt everything. Every harsh caress of the wind, the damp ground and cold mud. She especially felt Oskar staring – his eyes wide and tearful.

He left soon after and Sunshine stayed until morning. The sunrise felt like a warm relief upon her ageing form and soul. Once she knew it was safe, she tumbled up from the ground, still shaking, but still together. Then, she picked her dirty crossbow off the ground, and went home to her children and dying grandfather.


End file.
